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SPEECH 



HON. CHARLES J. "BIDDLE, 



OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 2, 1862. 



The House having under consideration Senate bill No. 184, to authorize the President 
lof the United States to appoint diplomatic representatives to the republics of Hayti and 
S Liberia, respectively, and the following substitute having been proposed by Mr. Cox: 

"That there be appointed for each of the republics of Liberia and Hayti a consul general, who shall be 
: authorized to negotiate any treaties of commerce between said republics and this country. And the 
salaries of said consuls general shall be the same as those now fixed by law'' — 

SiMr. BIDDLE said: 

; Mr, Si'EAker: I desire to submit a few remarks in advocacy of the amend- 
ment of tlie gentleman from Oliio, (Mr. Cox.) Coming from bim— a distin- 
I guished member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs — it shows that the com- 
I raiitee is not unanimous in reccmmending the bill as it stands. The bill thus 
I amended v?ould meet, I hope, the views of many constituents and valued friends 

'of mine who have at heart the substantial interests of the colony of Libeiia. It 

ican enjoy, under the provisions of this amendment, the fullest commeicial privi- 

|]eges. It will not have the hon()raiy dis inction of diplomatic representation, 

'the necessity for which has been, I think, over-estimated. 

By the published tables, I do not find that the commerce with Liberia and 
I Hayti suffers under any depression that might not be expected in times like 
ij these. Consular representation has sufficed there, as it has in a great many 

: other countries. A consul or a naval officer may be empowered to make a 
I treaty, if one is needed. All this the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Cox) has fully 

I! shown. 

• It is true that the consul now at Hayti — an intelligent gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts — is very urgent on this subject; but in the letter from him, alluded to 
by the gentleman who first addressed the House, (Mr, Gooch,) I find stated 
p what is, perhaps, not the weakest motive for his urgency to be ranked with the 
K diplomatists. He says . 

"Their liberal salaries enable thera to assume a style of living and a place in the social 
' world of Hayti entirely beyond my reach." 

Sir, this is the ambition to shine in " the first circles" which is constantly 
prompting our representatives at foreign courts to ask for higher rank and 
I higher compensation, and, as constantly, this House refuses to gratify that am- 
bition. 

Some gentlemen are willing, I know, to grant this diplomatic representation, 
thinking it a small matter; if it be so, let it wait till the day of small things. 
This is a time when small things may have great significance. 

But, sir, it is the present condition of the African race in this country, and 
the momentous political questions connected with it, which suggest to my mind 



objections to our now entering into new relations with these negro commu- 
nities. 

A short time since, the gentleman from Missouri, (Mr. Blair) — whom I have 
always regarded as the Achilles of the Republican party — told that party some 
plain truths. No man knows the facts better than he does, and he said : 

" Every man acquainted with the facts knows that it is fallacious to call this ' a slave- 
holders' rebellion.' If such was the fact, two divisions of our Army could have sup- 
pressed it without difliculty ; the negroes themselves could easily put down the two hun- 
dred and fifty tliousand slaveholders;" * * * * "a closer scrutiny 
demonstrates the contrary to be true; such a scrutiny demonstrates that the lebellioii 
originated chiefly witli the non-slaveholders resident in the strongholds of the institution, 
not springing, however, from any love of slavery, but from an antagonism of race and 
hostility to the idea of equality with the blacks involved in. simple emancipation." 

i 

There the gentleman from Missouri touched the true point; there he hit the 
right nail on the head. The leadeis of the rebellion had diverse aims; but it 
was only on one point that they could unite the people. Who helped them to 
do so, and how the white population of the South was driven to frenzy on that 
point, I will not stop now to discuss. A triumphant anti-slavery pirty; resist- 
ance by mobs and State legislatures to the fugitive slave law; the John Brown 
raid, and the public rejoicings over it; the fanatical crusade in which pulpit, 
press, and forum joined ; the programme of the Helper book and the Chicago 
platform endorsed by leading politicians of the ISorth — these .'should have been 
weighed more calmly at the South. Secession and war could afford no remedy 
for any of them. It was no case for an appeal to the sword; the appeal lay to 
the intelligence and sober second thought of the Ameiican people. 

And, now, sir, in the midst of a great civil war, in which every incident is 
seized upon to heighten and exasperate the angriest passion.s, even the recogni- 
tion of these small colonies gathers importance froni its relation to the subject 
of this strife. 

The bill before us is not an isolated measure ; it is a part of a policy that has 
greatly contributed to the severance of the Union ; it is part of a policy, the 
prevalence of which in the councils of the nation is at this moment the greatest 
obstacle to the restoration of the Union, and the successful prosecution of the 
war. 

The futile question of slavery in the territories acquired from Mexico threat- 
ened the Union in 1850; but the great intellects of the generation that gui- 
ded then the destinies of our country — a generation of which a few still tower 
among us — showed to the intelligence of the American people that they were 
about "to find cause of quarrel in a straw." Webster, and Clay, and Cass, and 
their compeers tossed aside the " Wilmot proviso," and like firebrands, and, 
without }.)roscribiug slavery, left it to make its dreaded inroads upon Utah and 
New Mexico. 

What followed ? Let the census answer. In twelve years, in Territories left 
open to it, slavery established itself to this formidable extent: New Mexico, 
twenty-four slavts; Utah, twenty-nine. In Kansas there were many pio-slavery 
politicians, many anti slavery politicians, but, I believe, no slaves at all. 

And now, sir — to come at once to the present time — it has* just been an- 
nounced to the American people, divided and impoverished by a mad strife 
about this slavery question, that the Chicago platform is at last fulfilled — the 
Territories of the United States are free ! Yes, we have achieved freedom for 
the twenty-nine slaves in Utah, and for the twenty-four slaves in New Mexico, 
and for the cooks and chambermaids in this District; but at an awful cost, an 
awful cost to the cause of constitutional liberty throughout the world — perhaps 
throughout all time ! 

Why, it was such a futile question, this question of slavery in the Territo- 



3 

ries, that you might have left it to th'; ftrst five or six men whom you could 
get to act as arbitrators. William Penn, the illustrious founder of Pennsylva- 
nia, once proposed to the States of Europe, to sheathe the sword forever, and 
settle all their differences by arbitration. The great men who framed a Consti- 
tution for the States of America realizeil tbat no)ble thought of Penn. They 
established a great national tribunal, and tjave to its decisions the sanctity of 
law ; thus they thought to avoid forever the antiquated, barbarous, and uncer- 
tain arbitrament of the sword. Beforw the judges of this tribunal came this 
fiUile question — futile as masonry or anti-masonry — the question of slavery in 
the Territories. They could decide it; not so as to please everybody ; no private 
cause is ever so decided as to please both plaintiff and dtilendaut; but what 
society asks of its tribunals is to put an end to strife — ut sit finis litium. The 
Supreme Court pronounced against the proscription of an institution once com- 
mon to all the States, and which fifteen of them still maintained. Some thought 
the judgment right, some thought it wrong ; but it seems to me that the mad- 
dest zealot will admit, now, that any peaceful arbitration was better than the 
carnage and devastation of a civil war. 

But, sir, politicians rebelled against that decision; they formed a political 
party to resist it, as they resisted the fugitive slave law ; they filled the minds of 
the southern people with the fear that the C.>nstitution would prove no shield 
for the rights of the minority; and now the hopes of the wise and good are 
baffled, and the blind and bloody arbiter, the sword, is settling for these States 
disputed points of constitutional law. Yes, this futile abstract point of law 
abuut slavery in the Territories was that on which politicians shouted "No com- 
promise!" " No aibitratiou !" "No Supreme Court !" forgetting, or perhaps not 
knowing the deep truth uttered by the great thinker Edmund Burke: 

"All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every 
prudent act is founded on compromise." 

The apprehension that the party about to assume power would so use it as 
to distuib the relation between the races was, as the gentleman from Missouri 
has truly said, the cause of this rebellion. Through it the rebel leaders roused 
the people and raised their armies. Now, my notion of policy has always been 
not to accredit those leaders by doing all they said we would do, but by our 
action, to discredit them, and disabuse the minds of the people, I would have 
the war prosecuted for attainable ends ; you may crimson a thousand battle- 
fields and never "wash the blackamoor white." 

To preserve the old frame of government, to rally to it the old affections, to 
divide the enemy, and to offer always terms that make submission better than 
resistance — this has seemed to me true policy, civil and military, such as the 
old masters practiced. An eminent writer on military science, Jomini, speaking 
of war against a united people, says: 

"If success be possible in such a war, the following; course will be most likely to in- 
sui'e it, namely: make a dis|)liiy of force [iroportioned to the ol)staeles and resistance 
likely to be encountered, calm the popular jiassiotis in every possible way, exhaust them 
by time and patience, display courtesy, gentleness, and severity united, and particularly 
deal justly. The example of Henry IV in the wars of the League," * » * « 
"of Hoche in La Vended, are models of their kind, which may be employed, according 
to circumstances, with equal success." 

Sir, if to this time the people of the boi'der States had offered to the masses 
of the South a spectacle of entire contentment and security upon this negro 
question, I believe the credit of the southern leaders would have been so shaken 
that they could not have kept an army in the field. 

I know that there are gentlemen who have deemed all policy on this subject 
little better than timidity ; who say liere constantly that they do not care how 
much they irritate rebels; but the result has not been happy. The gentleman 



from Missouri nearest to me [Mr. Phelps] told us that Fremont's proclamation 
raised an army for the rebels in that State ; and other proclamations have been 
issued, and bills passed here, that niiglit have been drafted by Jetf. Davis him- 
self, they suit his purposes so wtdl. 

Such, it seems to me, has been ihe t»^ndency and lie character of our African 
policy, of which this bill is a part. It has doubled the woik fur our armies. 

Sir, the crisis seems to me too great, the proportions of this rebellion are yet 
too vast, for us to treat it flippantly. To achieve success that shall be Insting 
and substantial, it is not enoutrh to defeat southern armies. Till the masses of 
the southern people yield a cheerful allegiance to this Government, we shall 
never again have the Union in which there is strength. We may have a vast 
standing army, but; if it be fully occupied at home, it can inspire no dread 
abroad. Till we again have a cordial Union of these once United States, we 
are like "the house divided against itself;" in the eyes of Europe we will be 
the "sick man" of the western hemisphere. 

Nor do I see any gleam of hope for returning prospi rity to my countiy in 
the unnatural schemes for turning the fertile regions of the South into a howl- 
ing wilderness of revolted negroes. As an American citizen, nay, even as the 
representative of a mercantile community, I may utter my protest against that. 
You must treble, too, vour present army to accomplish it. 
_ The restoration of the Federal authority was tlie reasonable and legitimate 
aim that enlisted the northern and the border States in the prosecution of this 
war. Wars of vengeance and ambition had fallen under the ban of religioa 
and humanity; and to all war so many evHs are incident that a modern states- 
man, echoing the sentiment of Cicero, declared tliat the worst peace was better 
than the best war. I have, however, so far dep4rted from the piincfiples of 
my Quaker -forefathers as to recognize the necessity of war. Even the jealousy 
ot foreign Powers did not prevent them from recognizing in this war a legiti- 
mate effort to restore authority thrown off with precipitate and insulting vio- 
lence. But, sir, when, in the language of the gentleman from Massachusetts, 
[Mr. Thomas,] you turn this war into a " remorseless struggle over the dead 
body of the Constitution," you will make it repugnant to the sentiments and to 
the interests of the civilized world. 

I cannot see that the policy of which this bill is a part, is statesmanlike 
and judicious at this time. The African policy of the majority of this Con- 
gress is spreading far and wide a just alarm for the future of our country and 
our race. Prompted by that alarm»we have seen men, bound together by no 
party ties, assemble in this Hall when the tedious duties of the day were over, 
on a call "to defeat the scheme?^ of the abolitionists and the secessionists." 
Thus were justly coupled the authors of the ills that now afflict our country, 
and I believe that throughout the land thoughtful, conservative. Union loving 
men everywhere do so couple them. 

When Andrew Johnson, fresh from his seat in this Congress, lately ad- 
dressed the people at Nashville, he told them : "Sumner wants to break up 
the Government, and so do the abolitionists generally." Sir, it is in this day 
of double danger to the Constitution that we are called upon to weigh well the 
acts of legislation that may afford countenance to either class of its enemies. 
When I see with whom this Senate bill originated I cannot disregard the 
warning of Andrew Johnson. I cannot recognize this measure as now 
prompted by that genuine philanthropy of which political abolitionism is the 
basest of counterfeits. 

I know, sir, well, that the constant effort of the abolitionist is to foster the 
belief that only those whose inierests are involved in slavery oppose the aboli- 
tion policy. Representing a free State, I may well say of slavery: 

"What's Hi^cuba to me, or I to Hecuba, 
That I should weep for her?" * 



Sir, when tbe Representatives of thp «^ave States exercised a large influence 
in this Government, I never receiveii nor asked their favors. Now, surely it 
would not be a propitious time fv: m man to range himself on the side of 
slavery. 

But, sir, though no interests on nvth are more remote from me and mine 
than the interests of slavery, yet I sh-..;^ to the full the apprehension, the alarm 
that has been expressed by the Representatives from the botder States upon this 
floor. Sir, that alarm would spread to every man of my constituents who loves 
his country and his race, if the public mind were not lulled and put to sleep 
with the word " colonization." I say the loord, not the thing ; for no practi- 
cable and adequate scheme for it has ever been presented or devised. The 
word is sung to us as a sort of " lullaby." I am fully conscious of the value, in 
this respect, of the Liberian colony. But I vyill not be misled by it. It gives 
us the means of measuring the adequacy of colonization to meet general, pre- 
cipitate emancipation. Sir, it is illusory; it does nut tranquilize me. When I 
see men bent on breaking down the dikes and opening the floodgates that shut 
out an inundation, I am not tranquillized, because some philanthropist stands 
by with a pint mug, promising to bail it out again. Colonization may carry 
off the leakage and the running over ; but if you suddenly let in the floods, it 
will prove but a "pint mug" measure of relief. It is vain to suppose that the 
industrial interests of the North can be made to bear a frightful expenditure to 
buy up and send away the productive labor of the South. That is political econ- 
omy run mad. Indeed, when the proposition came before us, one of my col- 
leagues, an eminent supporter of the Administration, the chairman of the Commit- 
tee of Ways and Means, [Mr. Stevens,] said, with his usual frankness, that it 
made no difference whether we adopted or rejected it ; he said it was " about the 
most diluted milk-and-water gruel proposition that was ever given to the Amer- 
ican people." Another distinguished colleague of mine, the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, [Mr. HickxMAn,] who voted for Mr. Lincoln, I believe,' 
called him "a coward" for making such a proposition. While eminent mem- 
bers of the party in power thus laugh to scorn this colonization scheme, I may 
well say it remains but an empty word. Yet, all measures for freeing slaves 
are pushed with the utmost activity. 

Take your post on the avenue towards nightfall ; you shall see troops of fu- 
gitives poifring into this city. Lately an appeal to us to provide for ttiem was 
laid ou the desk of every member. Where do they go to? To South Amer- 
ica ? That is one of the loords in fashion now. No, sir. There are no ways, 
no means, as the chairman of that committee said, for sending them to South 
America, and we own no place there to send them to. If you really meant to 
colonize the negroes, you should not set them free till you were ready to col- 
onize them. 

But the fact is that the abolitionists always have been,. and now are, noto- 
riously the bitterest opponents of colonization. Just now the word suits them, 
but they abhor tlie thing. It is no pan of their plan to send the negro race 
away. They want it here. They want it armed. They want it clothed with 
political rights. They want it to support their power, now on the wane among 
white men. 

Do they not constantly tell us here that instant emancipation is best, because 
the negroes then will hold possession of the southern States? But this leaves 
wholly out of account the white race. If not exterminated, it will resume^ its 
sway as soon as we withdraw our armies, and, as every State assumes the right 
to fix the status of the negro race within its borders, slavery may be re-estab- 
lished. To this they answer, we will keep a force there to maintain the free- 
dom of the blacks. I want no more than this to show that endless intervention 



6 

iQ the States, for the sake of the blacks against the Vvhite?, is a necessary con- 
sequence of the abolition policy. 

The fear that their power is passing away seems to cumulate the promoters of 
this policy to cousum:oate it irremediably by the most precipitate anil despetate 
measures. There has been a persistent elfort to nullify all laws, State and Fede- 
ral, for the reclamation of fugitives. Firtt you forbid the military .-luthority to re- 
strain slaves, then th* military is made to exclude the civil jurir-diclion ot the sub- 
ject. Thus, wherever our furces move, involuntary servitude is at an end, whether 
it be in a hostile or a loyal district. To carry their points, by military power 
outside of the Constitution is the plain, indeed, the avowed intention of the 
abolitionists. At whose instance has a general officer lately disseminated far and 
wide his edict abolishing the institution of slavery in three States? I have here 
one of the handbills, transmitted from the spot, to one of my constituents, by a 
disgusted officer. Here we^ are told thut "slavery and martial law in a free 
country are altogether incompatible." Rarely have words so incompatible met 
in the same sentence. Where maitial law prevails, there, for the time at least, 
it is no longer a free country. Not slavery, but freedom and its pillars — free 
speech, free press, and habeas corpus — are incompntible with military rule. 
Therefore it is that everywhere a just susceptibility has been aroused by the pre- 
tension that in States ivmote from the theatre of war, in States where every 
civd tribunal is in the full and undisturbed exercise of all its functions — in Penn- 
sylvania, in New Jersey, in New York, in Connecticut — ^^irbitrary arrests, arbi- 
trary imprisonments, arbitrary suppressions, may be justified by an appeal to 
martial law. 

Sir, when this last pretension for military power fiist met the public eye, and 
men doubted its authenticity, the abolition press knew it was genuine and burst 
out in preconcerted exultation. The "higher law" was to be realized, and 
Hayti was to be brought to every man's door. What followed, sir, when the 
•President proclaimed his disavowal ? The abolition press scoflVd at it; and set 
up at once the doctrine that the President had no power to affect "rights that 
had accrued" under General Hunter's order. I find this doctrine maintained 
daily in the paity organ in this city, called The National Republican. And, 
sir, the vote taken last week upon the wild and unconstitutional emancipaiion 
scheme proved, that in any constitutional or conservative policy which the Pre- 
sident may adhere to, his sujjport must come from the Democrats aiwl the bor- 
der State men, and a very few Republicans who enjoy lucid intervals upon the 
negro question. The vote stood — ayes 74, noes 78 ; but to that vote against the 
bill the party which elected Mr. Lincoln did not contribute a corporal's guard ; 
less, I think, than a dozen ; nearly all eminent lawyers, who could not compro- 
mise their I'eputations by voting tor what was so flagrantly unconstitutional. — ■ 
And this vote is to be " reconsidered." 

Sir, the imposing strength of a party in this Congress bent on making new 
Haytis, affords to me, at least, sufficient reason for not now recognizing the old 
one. For if, sir. General Hunter's proclamation was regarded with alarm when 
it was thought that it had the sanction of the President, can we regard it with 
less alarm when we find it promulgated in contempt of his authoiity, at the 
bidding of a faction that stops at nothing to attain its aims and bolster up its 
power. How gieat that power yet is, this House does not need to be told ; it 
is felt here, it is felt everywhere; the ambitious and the venal court it, and the 
timid fear it. There was a time when the abolition party was alike harmless 
and insignificant, and, while it remained so, secession was the esoteric doctrine 
of a small clique in Charleston. These parties sjn-ead and grew together till, 
now, thev confront each other, in vast proportions, like Death and Satan at the 
gates of Hell, as Milton pictuies them. 

As secession has deluded the South, so abolition has deluded the North. Its 



venal press has played its batteries of calumny and clamor against every man 
who has dart'd to oppose it. Whenever, in military or civil life, a man has 
treated this negro question as one that was too great to be made the shuttle- 
cock between the enthusiast and the d*:'magogue'; whenever any public man 
has ventured to cry, "Hold, this slavery is one of the great interests of our 
country, let us deal with it as sane men deal with the great interests of their 
country," what a howl this faction raised against him. How it has howled 
against the Democracy, because, yielding to the instinct of race, their fitst soli- 
citude has been for the liberties of white men. It strangled the old Whig par- 
ty, and hounded Choate and Webster to their graves. Yes, it slew the prophets. 
And now you hear its mntterings rising against Abraham Lincoln, whenever 
the sobering influence of his great office seems to weigh upon him. 

It was within the scope of the President's authority to recognize these coun- 
tries without an act of Congress, but he has thought proper to refer the matter 
to our deliberation. Thus he has recognized the fact that this is no unimport- 
ant measure. Sir, for that and every other instance of moderation, I pay to him 
my humble tribute of respect ; and, sir, I can truly say that I desire to take no 
captious exceptions to his policy. 

But, sir, the African policy that I am now commenting on is, in my judg- 
ment, utterl_y erroneous, and it shall not have the support of my vote in any 
stagH of it. While we, as representatives, may claim no supe'iority of judgment 
over thousands of our constituents, yet, sir, we are the sentinels on the ram- 
parts, and it is our function to give the alarm. Sir, the repugnance to negro 
equality is as strong in the middle States as it is at the South. It finds expres- 
siun in our lejgislation as well as in our social habits. I object to the establish- 
ment, at this time, of diplomatic relations with Hayti and Liberia, because it 
will be taken, and, by those who are at this time its prime movers, it is intended 
as an acknowledgment of the equality of the races. That may be a philosuphic 
idea, an English idea, but it is eminently un-American. That we are to have 
a negro here as a minister was frankly admitted by the gentleman from Maine. 
He did not evade it by saying that white men would be sent from these African 
communities. 

Mr. Fessenden. That remark was made by the gentleman from Massachu- 
setts, [Mr. GoocH.] My remark simpl^'^ was, that the gentleman from Ohio 
might draw his own inference. 

Mr. GoocH. I did say, Mr. Speaker, that the bill proposed that we should 
place Eayti and Liberia on an equality with other nations. I now ask the gen- 
tlemen to tell me if he knows of any other rule by which diplomatic relations 
can be established ? I ask him whether it is not a fixed pritciple that indepen- 
dent nations are equals? I said nothing about equality of races. 

Mr. BiDDLE. My answer to that is, that I do not wish to establish this diplo- 
matic relation at all. 

Mr. Fessenden. Will the gentleman from Pennsylvania let me say in this 
connection, that I concur in the remark made by the gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts, tliough that remark did not fall fiom me. 

Mr. Cox. When I asked the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Fessenden) 
whether he proposed to have black ministers come here from Hayti, the gentle- 
man from Maine said "why not?" Now, what did he mean by that? I ask 
him whether or not he is willing to receive black ministers from Hayti? 

Mr. Fessenden. Certainly, sir. 

Mr. Cox. Well, that is all. (Laughter.) 

Mr. BiDDLE. Then I have been interrupted, but not corrected at all. 

Mr. LovEjOY. I want to ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania whether he 
thinks the Chinese equal to the Yankees? 

Mr. BiDDLE. That is an ethnological question which is not pertinent to t' 



LIBRARY u»- "-""^"^ 

ilPllHllllllMilill!' 




8 

"0 "013 "700 925 

present subject. I will tell the gentleman what I thi „„ ^oiuesu on some 

more appropriate occasion. 

Mr. Speaker, I have always regarded Liberia with interest ; that infant colony, 
the child of American benevolence, I have looked to as the means of elevating 
Afiica to a place among the nations. But when I see how deeply the Provi- 
dence of God has rooted the institution of slavery in this land, I see that it can 
be safely eradicated only by a gradual process, in which neither the civil nor 
the militaiy power of the Federal Grovernment can intervene with profit. Gen- 
eral emancipation can be safely reached only through State action, pi'ompted 
by conviction and the progress of natural causes. 

Meanwhile, States that refuse admittance to the negro race within their bor- 
ders, or hold it there in political subordination, have no right to affect a phara- 
saical intolerance towards States which solve " the negro question" by means of 
domestic slavery. Through much of all the anti-slavery sentiment of the North 
there runs a vein of insincerity; and if, through the "great exodus" predicted 
by the gentleman from Ohio, (Mr. Bingham,) the negroes in great numbers are 
ti'ansferred to the North, this unfortunate race may find itself there in a posi- 
tion as unenviable as that from which it may escape. 

Mr. Bingham. Will the gent'eman from Pennsylvania allow me to sug- 
gest to him that I never intimated that the people would make an exodus to 
the North. I made an intimation that they would make an exodus from the 
''house of their bondage," if you dealt justly by them. I never made an inti- 
mation that they would make an exodus to the North. The history of the 
Republic shows well that, left to the enjoyment of their freedom, they would 
not make exoduses to the North. 

Mr. Biddle. I thought the gentleman was so good a bibli'cal scholar that 
he would use the word "exodus" in its appropriate sense, and in relation to 
such an exodus as that of which we read in the Bible. 

Mr. Bingham. I do not know that the word exodus suggests to the black J 
or 'to any other race of men that they should make an exodus to the North. 

Mr. Biddle. That is a philological question, and I have not time to enter! 
upon it at present. 

And' now, Mr, Speaker, I will not say by my vote that I think this great* 
national crisis is the happy hour at which to accord, for the first time, diploma- 
tic representation to the negro. Many a true friend of Liberia will admit thati 
this is not the time to assert her claims. Such, at least, is my conviction ; and[ 
my vote therefore will express that conviction. This is no time to give an inchs 
to those who will take an ell. I will not help to stick a new feather in theS 
cap of abolition ; that " Gessler's cap" to which it is sought to make the Nortl 
bow down, in violation of its sentiments and its interests. I will vote for tht 
amendment; if that is lost then I shall vote against the bill. 



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